


A Broken Pseudonym

by Halcyon25



Category: Ender Series - Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game - All Media Types
Genre: Academia, Ficlet, Gen, Headcanon, Post-Book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halcyon25/pseuds/Halcyon25
Summary: “You’re telling everyone that you’re Demosthenes? A fourteen-year-old girl?” “We’re only telling them that Demosthenes is going with the colony. Let them spend the next fifty years poring over the passenger list, trying to figure out which one of them is the great demagogue of the Age of Locke.” (Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card, pg. 314)Years later, a scholar pours over said passenger list, hoping to solve the mystery or at least get enough for her dissertation...





	A Broken Pseudonym

I searched through rather dry passenger manifests, following the footsteps of other historians and literary critics before me. I was studying one of the most cliched and talked of topics—who was Demosthenes, Locke’s great rival before he became Hegamon. Now everyone knows that Locke was Peter Wiggin, the Xenocide’s elder brother, but almost every PhD candidate and scholar has pondered the identity of Demosthenes. I would rather consider it an honored tradition than a spent well, because I am one of those overzealous PhD candidates and I hope to put a good enough spin on it to write a dissertation. 

This was the reason I was searching the manifests. Demosthenes had declared that he was traveling on this colony starship, so I was trying to find more information about the people who were simply listed as a name and an age. I had found a few likely candidates, but I was nearing the end of the list and had not found anyone who had grabbed my attention. “Walsh, Ivan, 46,” “Warner, Steven, 23,” I whispered to myself, “Wiggin, Ender, 12,” ah, there was he was, the Xenocide—so much had been written about him. I continued, “Wiggin, Valentine, 14.” Wait, Wiggin? Two Wiggins? There had to be a story here. 

After searching the Nets for more information, I discovered that neither Valentine nor Wiggin were common names and Ender had a sister with that name. There was no record of her death on Earth, so this Valentine could have accompanied her brother. I was surprised no one had noticed this. I suppose they all stopped at the more famous Wiggin’s name. Although this rabbit trail was undeniably interesting, I had wandered off my topic—or had I? Ender Wiggin was assuredly one of the most brilliant minds of their age, so it was not unreasonable to think that Valentine might have been similarly gifted. 

Before I jumped to any conclusions, I had to make sure she truly was a genius. I dug a bit deeper. After the scandal that followed Ender’s victory over the Formics where we discovered that we had just killed an entire species, the International Fleet was particularly eager to be as open as possible. Many of the records related to Ender’s time at Battle School, Command School, and even the time before that were open to the public. My hunch proved right. The records about his siblings were not unclassified, but they were often mentioned in Ender’s records. Both Peter and Valentine had equal talent to the greatest commander of all time. Why could Valentine not have been Demosthenes? She had the intelligence, the maturity, and the ability to write compelling political essays. 

As I worked on my dissertation for the next two years, I grew even more certain that Valentine Wiggin indeed was Demosthenes and I poured this passion into my work. When I defended my dissertation, the panel of examiners was not nearly as convinced. They told me they appreciated the novelty of my hypothesis, but they hardly thought that a child could do such work—and how did I explain the work that was still being sent? It must be a society of adults publishing the most influential work of well established scholars. Despite the doubts, I received my PhD and quietly published my dissertation. 

— — —-

Many light years away, an alert lit up a computer screen. Some combination of words in the publication had caught its attention. Startled by the flash of light, Valentine Wiggin rushed over, then smiled—perhaps they were not as ignorant as she had thought.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my AP Lit class a few years back so it may be a little unpolished...


End file.
